Knoxville Restaurants

#2,376
#2,376
An aunt forced the family to Paula Deen's in Pigeon Forge yesterday.

It was hilariously AWFUL.

I mean, my expectations were zero but I was honestly surprised how bad the food was.
 
#2,378
#2,378
So I somehow managed to convince my whole family to stop whatever they were doing at their perspective homes on a Sunday evening to brave the nasty, cold, wet weather and try out a new restaurant. There we were driving up Parkside drive heading toward none other than K Town Tavern only to find out the place was dark and deserted. Not once did it occur to me to actually check the hours because I mean what decent eating establishment operating in Knox County actually closes their doors on a Sunday besides Chik-Fil-A?! The short answer is NOBODY! No restaurant that actually wants to remain in business closes their doors on one of the only two weekend days on the calendar. Do you know what people in east TN do on Sundays? They get up, go to church, go to lunch to eat and drink beer, then they go back to church in the evening to ask for forgiveness for the beer they had at lunch and then they do it all over again for dinner.

I don't know if Peerless was also closed on Sundays and I just simply don't recall that fact but I can promise you if they were it certainly didn't help their downfall. Needless to say because they were actually open and wanted to do business Carrabbas got our money.

Sorry Crusse, I know it's not your fault but you officially work for Chik-Fil-A 2. I'll eventually try the food at K Town Tavern someday and it clearly won't be on a Sunday.
 
#2,380
#2,380
chatt-townVOL said:
This is completely the opposite of everything I've heard
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A lot of the people in the family were massively disappointed...especially considering you're in for $20 a pop for adults.

Biscuits tasted basically like cheap white bread. Gravy was water thin. Cinnamon rolls were obviously days old. The brown sugar bacon was literally dripping with the sugar coating to the point it tasted like smoked sugar. Every single thing was cold and it was obvious everything is prepared and set out under lamps so servers can grab what they need since its "unlimited family style".

I was going to just figure they had an off day, until we asked for more eggs. Our initial run of cheese eggs was basically eggs with some unmelted shredded cheese. We asked to maybe get some just regular scrambled eggs (no cheese, etc). We were told "Um...we can't do that. They're already made up." If you're serving breakfast and can't scramble some eggs, why bother?
 
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#2,382
#2,382
WallyBalls said:
A lot of the people in the family were massively disappointed...especially considering you're in for $20 a pop for adults.

Biscuits tasted basically like cheap white bread. Gravy was water thin. Cinnamon rolls were obviously days old. The brown sugar bacon was literally dripping with the sugar coating to the point it tasted like smoked sugar. Every single thing was cold and it was obvious everything is prepared and set out under lamps so servers can grab what they need since its "unlimited family style".

I was going to just figure they had an off day, until we asked for more eggs. Our initial run of cheese eggs was basically eggs with some unmelted shredded cheese. We asked to maybe get some just regular scrambled eggs (no cheese, etc). We were told "Um...we can't do that. They're already made up." If you're serving breakfast and can't scramble some eggs, why bother?
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Gordon Ramsay would have a field day with this place.
 
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#2,383
#2,383
Coug said:
So I somehow managed to convince my whole family to stop whatever they were doing at their perspective homes on a Sunday evening to brave the nasty, cold, wet weather and try out a new restaurant. There we were driving up Parkside drive heading toward none other than K Town Tavern only to find out the place was dark and deserted. Not once did it occur to me to actually check the hours because I mean what decent eating establishment operating in Knox County actually closes their doors on a Sunday besides Chik-Fil-A?! The short answer is NOBODY! No restaurant that actually wants to remain in business closes their doors on one of the only two weekend days on the calendar. Do you know what people in east TN do on Sundays? They get up, go to church, go to lunch to eat and drink beer, then they go back to church in the evening to ask for forgiveness for the beer they had at lunch and then they do it all over again for dinner.

I don't know if Peerless was also closed on Sundays and I just simply don't recall that fact but I can promise you if they were it certainly didn't help their downfall. Needless to say because they were actually open and wanted to do business Carrabbas got our money.

Sorry Crusse, I know it's not your fault but you officially work for Chik-Fil-A 2. I'll eventually try the food at K Town Tavern someday and it clearly won't be on a Sunday.
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It's a combination of a few things. We need to hire more managers, because our GM is stretched so thin and it's just her. As Peerless, we were only 4-10ish, Monday-Saturday. That was because the original operated under the same hours. By Summer, the plan is to be open for lunch and on Sundays. Hopefully soon a Happy Hour will be implemented. I'm going to try to convince them to do a 4-6 Happy Hour during the week and a 3-5 Happy Hour on the weekend.

As it is now, it feels like there's a fear of making money outside of the constructs with which ownership has operated until now. Things have changed and now it's different. It's a restaurant/bar and people want to be enticed. Gotta entice 'em.
 
#2,384
#2,384
vol_in_ar said:
the Blackhorse is Open on Sunday :)
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Lol! You crack me up with the BH plugs.

crusse10 said:
It's a combination of a few things. We need to hire more managers, because our GM is stretched so thin and it's just her. As Peerless, we were only 4-10ish, Monday-Saturday. That was because the original operated under the same hours. By Summer, the plan is to be open for lunch and on Sundays. Hopefully soon a Happy Hour will be implemented. I'm going to try to convince them to do a 4-6 Happy Hour during the week and a 3-5 Happy Hour on the weekend.

As it is now, it feels like there's a fear of making money outside of the constructs with which ownership has operated until now. Things have changed and now it's different. It's a restaurant/bar and people want to be enticed. Gotta entice 'em.
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Ahh, so not being open on Sunday was also a Peerless thing. I stopped in sometime last week with a girlfriend of mine. We had already eaten and thought we'd get a beer and see what the place was like. I think the guy working the bar was Michael. Very cool, friendly guy. He seems to share similar thoughts as you do about the place. Given the huge beer selection you guys have I asked him about flights and he said you guys don't have them yet but he hopes that they do. He was very accommodating though with the request. He told us they were working on adding a happy hour, and they were also still trying to work out the details of the outdoor patio. I noticed, I guess it's your GM, Christina trying to do some damage control on Tripadvisor. She was saying to others that they plan to add the happy hour and also start opening for lunch and on Sundays as you just said.

Right now though it almost feels like they might have opened the place before having some mid-range things ironed out. We both enjoyed the atmosphere though.
 
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#2,385
#2,385
Wow. How hard is it to come up with a happy hour? And not open on Sunday? Are you short staffed? It just doesn't seem special enough to be closed....you need to get everyone in there spending money.

It's kind of mind blowing how slow and backwards this place has been. Months to redo it and they are still trying to come up with a happy hour? Don't work the braintrust too hard over there. Flights of beer? It'll be years before they figure that out.

Hate it for the folks working there. I've heard good stuff friends eating there but then I read this board and it blows my mind how seemingly slow and clueless management seems.

Oh well. I've heard good things. I gotta get down there soon.

Taffer does in three days what's taken Peerless a year it seems. (I kid a little)
 
#2,386
#2,386
Management and employees come up with ideas regularly. It's getting ownership to implement things that's the roadblock. I started designing a proposal for a happy hour tonight.

As for flights, that was something initially planned for the opening. But the flight board holes were cut incredibly shallow and I immediately insisted we don't do the flights with them as they wouldn't hold the glasses steadily enough to guarantee glasses wouldn't get broken regularly in transport to tables.

And Michael is great. He's one of the very few remaining Peerless employees.

And Christina is actually not the GM. She manages the social media, but works as a manager at the Peerless in Johnson City. I spoke with her today to fix some issues with beers they were initially planning on cutting out of our selection. Hopefully they'll start coming to me before making any major bar decisions for the foreseeable future.
 
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#2,391
#2,391
Someone named Kevin from Leesburg, VA just called and told a story about Scott from Calhoun's. Was that you PJ?
 
#2,393
#2,393
utvolpj said:
Not me, I'm in Florida now. Hope it wasn't the riverboat story
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Something about how he and Scott had a few drinks after work one night and while another friend of theirs was trying to close their section they stripped down into their underwear and jumped off the deck at Calhoun's into the TN river.
 
#2,394
#2,394
Coug said:
Something about how he and Scott had a few drinks after work one night and while another friend of theirs was trying to close their section they stripped down into their underwear and jumped off the deck at Calhoun's into the TN river.
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That definitely sounds like him.
 
#2,399
#2,399
KnoxVillain said:
Crusse, if I come in on a Monday can I get a happy hour discount on some bourbon??
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One of the discounts I'm trying to implement on my Happy Hour that I'm pitching is $2 off all well drinks (makes them $4) and $2 off all Tennessee whiskeys (including 4 Tennessee bourbons). And I can pretty much definitely hook you up lol
 
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